Oral arguments began today in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the U.S. Supreme Court case which challenges a Texas law that threatens public health. Photo by Lindsey Wahowiak/The Nation’s Health

Oral arguments began today in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the U.S. Supreme Court case which challenges a Texas law that restricts access to reproductive health services with medically unnecessary abortion requirements.

APHA outlined its position with two briefs in support of the plaintiffs, the more recent stating that the law causes “serious harms for individual women and their families” and “also real threats to the overall public health.”

“Without access to safe, local reproductive care, including legal abortion, women’s health suffers. The public health in Texas is particularly vulnerable because of the substantial population of low income women of reproductive age and because of the state’s lack of support for family planning,” APHA stated in its summary. “By stripping the vast majority of the state’s already-vulnerable population of access to safe, legal abortion care, H.B. 2 creates a substantial risk that women will seek later-term abortions with increased risk, face the serious mental and physical health risks of being forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, or resort to illegal abortions.”

According to The Nation’s Health, a ruling against the plaintiff would close about 75 percent of the Texas abortion clinics.